The Dead

Bam, Joh

As they worked, they could hear the teachers down the corridor, bashing and thumping against the kitchen door.

‘Can’t you hurry up?’ said Kwanele, who was standing back, watching, his luggage sitting neatly at his feet, for all the world as if he was waiting for a train.

‘We’re going as fast as we can,’ said Bam.

‘If you’re in so much of a hurry,’ said Jack irritably, ‘why don’t you help? Or don’t you want to get your clothes messed up?’

‘I’m not very good with my hands,’ said Kwanele, flattening a lapel on his suit jacket. ‘And, yes, I don’t want to ruin my clothes. This shirt is Comme des Garçons.’

Jack shook his head and tutted. If Kwanele wasn’t so ridiculous, the others would have long ago lost patience with him.

There was one last plank left to remove. Bigger and thicker than the others, with about ten fat nails fixing it to the door. The boys were getting in each other’s way and Joh

There came an almighty crash from the kitchen.

Jack glanced back. Had the door finally given out?

‘Come on, come on,’ he said, as much to the piece of wood as to the other boys. He was scrabbling at the plank with his fingers, trying to prise it loose, and he was so intent on removing it that he lost track of what was going on behind him. It was only when he heard a high-pitched scream that he turned round.

There were teachers in the hallway. Six of them, including Monsieur Morel, who had his hands at the throat of one of the Field House boys and was shaking him like a doll. The boy’s friends were battering the teacher with their makeshift weapons. The rest of them were being kept back by the Sullivan brothers and the three nerds, who stayed in a tight pack, yelling and screaming abuse.

Ed was with the rest of the boys, who were milling in a frightened circle, not sure what to do.

Joh

‘You get the door open,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll deal with this lot.’

Ed ran over to help Jack and between them they managed to get the bit of bedstead behind the plank. They pulled down on it with all their weight and with a horrible squealing noise the nails began to pull loose.

Joh

Monsieur Morel was still savaging the boy from Field House. The blows raining down on his back seemed to be having no effect.

With a final screech, the plank popped off the door. Jack grabbed one end and raced back to Morel.

‘Out of the way!’

He swung the piece of wood at the man’s head and it stuck fast. One of the nails must have punched through his skull. Morel stood up, the plank hanging from the back of his head like a huge ponytail. He stretched out an arm towards Jack, then went stiff and shuddered before falling sideways, knocking over Miss Warlock, who slipped and slithered about on the floor, unable to stand up in a pool of melting foam.

‘Come on,’ Bam yelled from the doorway. ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’

‘We don’t know what’s out there.’ Ed looked worried.

‘Can’t be any worse than what’s in here,’ Jack shouted as he ran over and pushed past Ed.

Ed closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to find some small scrap of courage hidden deep inside.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that he’d been left behind. The others had already gone outside. He hurried after them and found them in a tight pack, blinking in the early-morning light. The boys from Field House looked shell-shocked. Ed realized their friend hadn’t made it. He said nothing. Too sick to speak.

There didn’t appear to be anyone else around out here, but a low moan from behind him caused Ed to turn around. The teachers were emerging from the House, covered in foam. They were too sick to move fast, and the boils and sores covering their skin made them walk as if they were treading barefoot on broken glass, but the boys knew from experience that they wouldn’t stop. Once they started to follow they wouldn’t give up.

‘Leg it!’ Bam shouted, and the boys raced across the open ground towards the main school entrance.

Ed stayed at the back, helping Wiki and Arthur. They were smaller than everyone else and slower. Ed didn’t know what he’d do if one of them got left behind. He urged them on, shouting encouragement, aware all the time that the teachers were steadily lumbering along behind them.

They rounded the end of School House and headed towards the archway that led out into School Yard. Ed spotted Jack ahead. He was hanging back, staring at the administrative building by the main gates.

What now?

Ed was too scared to stop. He sprinted through the arch, but, as he ran past, Jack grabbed hold of his jacket and pulled him back.

Wiki and Arthur ran on.

‘What’s the matter?’ Ed’s voice rasped in his throat.

‘Can you see that?’ said Jack, and he blinked, as if not wanting to trust his own eyes.

Ed turned in the direction Jack was looking. For a moment he could see nothing.

‘What?’ he said, scared and angry and desperate to get away. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Over there. The office where the school secretaries work.’

‘What? What is it …? Oh, my God.’

There was a girl at the window, hammering on the glass, her mouth forming a silent scream.

6

‘Who the hell is it?’

‘Du

‘We should keep up with the others,’ said Ed, nervously glancing over to the road where Wiki and Arthur were disappearing from view.

‘We can’t just leave her there,’ said Jack.

‘No … I know … I didn’t mean that.’

‘Then what did you mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ed massaged the back of his neck. Couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘We’re going to go and help her,’ said Jack. ‘OK?’

Ed turned back towards the archway. There was no sign of the teachers yet, but it was only a matter of time before they came through.

‘OK,’ he said.

A look of relief flooded the face of the girl in the window as they hurried over to the building. She was thin, with long hair and a slightly large nose and mouth. Her cheeks were wet with tears and her eyes red.

The boys gestured for her to open the window. She shook her head and indicated that it was locked.

‘Why doesn’t she just use the door?’ Ed asked as he and Jack went along to the front entrance. His question was immediately answered as they came upon a small pack of teachers scrabbling in the covered entranceway to get inside.

The two boys backtracked quickly and, luckily, the teachers, too intent on trying to get in, didn’t see them. When they got back to the window, the girl was crying again, and knocking uselessly against the glass with a shoe.

‘That’s no good,’ said Jack. ‘It’s toughened glass.’

Ed tried to control his fear, fighting the urge to suggest that they should leave her, and then he spotted two big green wheelie bins on the other side of the yard.